Rome, May 5, 2025 – Six days, seven venues, over twenty cultural and scientific partners, and nearly one hundred speakers from around the world: Venice Climate Week is the new Italian event created to celebrate World Environment Day and World Oceans Day.
From June 3 to 8, 2025, the city of Venice will host the first edition of Venice Climate Week, conceived and curated by Riccardo Luna in collaboration with the Future Food Institute. This international week is dedicated to climate change, sustainability, and regenerative economic models—aimed at reigniting dialogue among institutions, citizens, businesses, activists, scientists, and artists. Live coverage will be provided by Ansa.it and Sky TG24, with Corriere della Sera as media partner.
Context
Venice Climate Week was created as an open platform of events to foster broad, meaningful, and inclusive dialogue on the state of our planet and the urgent need to collectively reimagine the ecological transition. Ten years after the Paris Agreement and the publication of Laudato Si’, its mission is clear: to “inspire individuals and organizations” to refresh their goals, tools, and narratives. The event takes place in conjunction with two symbolic UN observances: World Environment Day (June 5) and World Oceans Day (June 8).
Organizers
The initiative is conceived and curated by Riccardo Luna, journalist and Italian innovation advocate, with a longstanding commitment to sustainability. He was the first editor-in-chief of Wired Italia and served as Italy’s Digital Champion. In 2023, he co-curated the Sky TG24 documentary Earth4All and the World of Francis, exploring Pope Francis’ climate advocacy. In 2024, he conducted the only Italian interview with Al Gore, later meeting the Pope together with Gore. He curated two photographic exhibitions on climate change at Gallerie d’Italia (2023 and 2024), and promoted a climate petition that collected 200,000 signatures, presented to President Sergio Mattarella. He is currently a columnist for Corriere della Sera. The event is produced by the Future Food Institute, a global innovation ecosystem founded by Sara Roversi to tackle the most pressing challenges of the global food system. Through research, education, and entrepreneurship, FFI fosters the transition toward a more sustainable, inclusive, and regenerative future. With offices in Italy and abroad, the Institute connects institutions, businesses, and communities to drive positive impact through solutions that blend technology, culture, and sustainability. Venice Climate Week collaborates with key institutions including UNESCO-IOC, NATIVA, Venice World Sustainability Capital Foundation (VSF), CMCC Foundation, SEA BEYOND, The Human Safety Net, Ocean Space, Ca’ Foscari University, IUAV, Venice International University, the City and Region of Venice, and leading environmental and sustainability organizations like Marevivo, WWF, Legambiente, and ASviS.
Venues
The event will take place in prestigious locations across Venice, including Ca’ Foscari University, IUAV, Le Corderie dell’Arsenale, Ocean Space, the Procuratie Vecchie, the SEA BEYOND Ocean Literacy Centre, and the M9 Museum in Mestre. And of course, Casa Sanlorenzo, which opens its doors for the Venice Climate Week. This newly restored space, designed by Piero Lissoni and conceived by Sanlorenzo—a symbol of Italian yachting excellence worldwide—serves as a bridge between past and future, a meeting place to foster stimulating dialogue with the world of art and culture. During the days of VCW, it will host the ‘Sanlorenzo Talks,’ a series of conversations on innovation and the environment featuring outstanding speakers. Venice, a city of timeless beauty, fragility, and resilience, offers the perfect stage for dynamic dialogue among stakeholders, weaving together threads of climate science, economy, and culture. The city is also home to the CMCC, the National Center for Biodiversity, and UNESCO-IOC’s Ocean Literacy office.
Format and Key Figures
Venice Climate Week will host around 100 national and international speakers, including:
Jeremy Rifkin, economist and visionary, who will open the Week with a keynote titled Planet Aqua, and participate in multiple events, including a major session at Ocean Space and the official visit to the newly established SEA BEYOND Ocean Literacy Centre on the Island of San Servolo, where he will meet ten outstanding students selected by the Universities of Venice for a discussion on the role of ocean education in shaping the conscious leaders of tomorrow. His presence will anchor a radical rethinking of the ecological transition, centered on water as our most precious common good.
Louise Carver, PhD is a human geographer and political ecologist exploring how governance, knowledge, politics and technologies shape the interactions between environment and society.
Eric Ezechieli and Paolo Di Cesare, co-founders of NATIVA, CO2alition, and the Regenerative Society Foundation.
Daniele Franco, economist and former minister, Director of the Cini Foundation, speaking at the “Life Economy” event at Ca’ Foscari.
Rosalba Giugni is the founder of the Marevivo Foundation, an Italian organization dedicated to the protection of the sea and marine environment since 1985. The foundation actively promotes environmental education, combats pollution, and advocates for the conservation of biodiversity.
Federico Marchetti, Chair of the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Fashion Task Force.
Giovanna Melandri, Kim Polman and Sara Scherr, key voices in social innovation and regenerative transition.
Pietro Daniel Omodeo is a cultural historian of science and a professor of historical epistemology at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage – Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His main areas of inquiry are Anthropocene philosophy, the material history of science in the longue durée, the cultural history of cosmology and the politics of epistemology.
Massimo Perotti, Executive Chairman of Sanlorenzo – pioneer of sustainability, and advocate of cutting-edge technologies for environmental protection
- Carlo Petrini, Founder of Slow Food.
- Miria Pigato, environmental economist at the World Bank.
- Carlo Ratti, Curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.
- Guendalina Salimei, Curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 2025 Architecture Biennale with the project “The Intelligence of the Sea”.
- Francesca Santoro, Senior Programme Officer UNESCO and head of the Ocean Literacy program
- Antonio Scurati, writer and professor.
- Leading scientists and climatologists: Carlo Barbante, Giulio Boccaletti, Ferdinando Boero, Luca Mercalli, Paola Mercogliano, Antonio Navarra, Andrea Rinaldo, Antonio Ragusa and Valerio Rossi Albertini
- Experts in urban planning and circular cities: Francesco Magni, Francesco Musco, Pierluigi Sacco, Valentina Orioli, Michela Tiboni, and Edoardo Zanchini.
- Cultural leaders: Fabrizio Ferri, Simona Maschi and Ersilia Vaudo,
On June 7, the spotlight will turn to Climate Tech startups during a dedicated investor session at Le Corderie dell’Arsenale, organized with VeniSIA – led by Prof. Carlo Bagnoli – and Cleantech for Italy, featuring key players in sustainable innovation.
“Venice is a living paradox: both fragile and millennia-old, a symbol of beauty threatened by climate change. It is precisely from here, from this suspended city, that with VeniSIA we sought to demonstrate how technological innovation, when properly contextualized, can become a tool for antifragility. With the ‘Future Farming Initiative’, VeniSIA brings to the Venice Climate Week a project that radically reimagines the relationship between nature, technology, and material production: a sustainable, replicable, and visionary model capable of equipping the planet without destroying it.” Prof. Carlo Bagnoli
The event will conclude on June 8 with a public climate change assembly at the M9 Auditorium in Mestre. Titled “How Do We Get Out of This?” and hosted by journalists Ferdinando Cotugno and Fabio Deotto, it will feature diverse voices to build a new shared narrative countering denial and inaction.
Jeremy Rifkin and Planet Aqua
“Our hydrosphere—the source of all life—is being rewilded by global warming, unleashing record-breaking snowstorms, torrential floods, devastating droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and deadly hurricanes, causing serious damage to ecosystems, infrastructure, and society.” Rifkin is working with the European Commission, Parliament, industry, and civil society to integrate a Blue Deal into the existing Green Deal, positioning Europe at the forefront of the transition from the Age of Progress to the Age of Resilience, in the era of Planet Aqua.
Youth at the Center
Youth will be the heartbeat of the event through the Climate Shapers program—an intensive educational journey training them as facilitators, curators, and speakers. From January to June 2025, Climate Shapers will actively participate, capturing insights and synthesizing key messages to ensure lasting impact.
Full Program
Available online from May 5, 2025 at veniceclimateweek.org